General Motors has opened a 52-acre testing ground for safety features and self-driving car technology at its Milford Proving Ground facility, the Detroit News is reporting.
The site includes areas for pedestrian safety, highway testing and 16 acres for autonomous vehicle testing. The $14,000,000 facility is already being used for some testing.
The facility opens as the automaker is still under fire for failing to recall millions of cars with faulty ignition systems, which is being investigated by federal and state officials.
The automaker is reportedly testing Super Cruise at the new facility and on the streets, which is an advanced safety features that GM says could debut in 2017. The system would drive the car completely at highway speeds and in stop-and-go traffic.
GM is also working on vehicle-to-vehicle communication that could enable cars to “talk” to each other, communicating road conditions and alerting traffic of upcoming accidents.
Is that Speedy Relief from the old Alka-Seltzer ads sans hat?
Floor it! Now!
Heh heh heh.
I was thinking they could make this place varsity for the robot cars by releasing a herd of cats into the course.
Who do you hold responsible when one of these cars FLATTENS someone?
The mere fact a $30,000 car can hacked into crashing is more than enough reasons for me NEVER to choose telematics or electronic steering.
While a manual (Rest in Peace) is the best way to maintain control over a car, My car’s automatic can EASILY be slipped into Neutral if I ever ran into a problem. Totally unlike Mark and Cleofe Saylor’s Lexus (RIP).
I’ll be sticking with dirty, big, thirsty V8’s and hydraulic/mechanical steering for some time.
Not to say that the Saylors’ car wouldn’t have done the same thing, but the car that killed them wasn’t theirs. It was a loaner from the Lexus dealer. They’d taken in their 2006 Lexus IS and picked up a 2009 Lexus ES…which is even scarier, IMO,
If they coulda just put it into Neutral…
No, no, no, it was his fault…not technology. Sheeze.
“Totally unlike Mark and Cleofe Saylor’s Lexus (RIP).”
It’s actually quite easy to put that particular Lexus into neutral: they just struggled with how to use a gated shifter while panicking. My ex had the same issue with the Sienna, which uses the same gate.
Frankly, she had the same issue with a manual-transmission-equipped, hence why my Mazda Protege got a bumper re-do once courtesy of a parking barrier.
People panic and do the wrong thing in an accident. Machines usually don’t, and can in fact do the right things faster.
I’ll take this system, and Google’s autonomous cars, over humans any day
$14 mil. is nothing for GM. It would be a rounding error.
It’s interesting that GM is also one of the primary sponsors of the Mcity autonomous and connected vehicle testing facility in Ann Arbor. Members of the Mcity “Leadership Circle” get access to all of the testing and research done there. GM’s new testing facility at the Milford Proving Grounds lets them do testing without having to share it with anyone.
Serious Malibu cat is unimpressed with the child playing in front of it. Is also hongray.
GM should put that $14,000,000 into their quality assurance, quality control, customer satisfaction, etc.